Established in 2017, the Canada-IFC Renewable Energy Program for Africa is a partnership between the Government of Canada and IFC to accelerate and scale up private sector investment in renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa as a means to improve access to affordable and sustainable energy services that, in turn, play an important role in reducing poverty, reducing gender inequality, and tackling climate change. Eligible projects are aligned with Canada’s pledge of CA$155 million to support renewable energy generation in Africa under the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).
Priority Areas
The investment component of the Program provides CA$150 million of concessional capital that can be blended with IFC’s own commercial capital to catalyze private sector-led, high-impact renewable energy investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Program can invest in a range of renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind, among others, as well as energy transmission, distribution, and storage.
The advisory component (CA$5 million) includes three focus areas: (1) addressing gender gaps in the energy sector in SSA; (2) stimulating an investment pipeline of off-grid and distributed generation (DG) projects; and (3) measuring project-level results in DG projects under the Program.
